


Kisses and Laughter

by MissSunFlower94



Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-13 01:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2132178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSunFlower94/pseuds/MissSunFlower94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diaval doesn't understand human courting, and Maleficent is amused. But then she doesn't exactly understand her feelings for her servant, either. Six Drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Kisses and Laughter**  

 

“ _But only by… True Love’s Kiss._ ”

Diaval turned the words over in his mind for weeks after he and his mistress had left King Stefan’s castle. He had a feeling she’d said so as one final dig at the man, but he had still felt better knowing that there was some loophole in the curse she had placed on the innocent child. Not that he would say that to her. Ever.

Still, the words confused him. Ravens knew love, monogamous as they were, but the rest…

“Mistress?” He ventured one night, about a month after the christening. It was late, and he could perhaps blame his exhaustion for letting his curiosity overtake his good sense.

Maleficent looked over from unbinding her horns, preparing to sleep. Usually she would have returned him to his true form long before now – clearly she had other things on her mind. Thinking that was what he wanted she raised her hand to transform him.

“Um, I had a question first, if I might,” he stumbled. Maleficent’s moods were something he spent much of his time trying to unravel. She could be playful and gentle one second and cold and furious the next. Diaval was still working on what he could and couldn’t say. Too late to back out now, though, he thought.

Thankfully, she simply raised perfect eyebrows. “And what is it?”

“What is a kiss?”

She blinked, startled. “You really don’t know?” She asked a slightly strangled note to her voice, her eyes glittering.

Silently, Diaval shook his head.

And then, to his amazement, she _laughed_. Really laughed, without a trace of bitterness or sarcasm to it. He had never seen her so truly delighted since he had met her, and he was so enthralled he couldn’t even feel insulted that she was laughing at him.

At last, his mistress calmed and sat back, returning to her task of unwrapping her hair, and spoke calmly, almost absently. “I suppose that’s to be expected. It’s quite simple really. Two people, typically… mates, or a courting pair, touch lips.”

Diaval cocked his head, a little lost still. “For what purpose?”

Maleficent’s own lips twitched, on the verge of laughing again. “There is no purpose, Diaval; it’s simply mating behavior. Nothing more.”

He wasn’t sure that made sense; raven mating behavior always had some kind of purpose, he thought. Nesting and mate feeding and the like, all this he understood. Still, he found himself looking at his mistress’s full red lips, the small smile tucked into the corners. He wondered, somewhat vaguely, if, as a faerie, she had no practice in human mating customs either, or if she indeed experience with kisses.

He had worked out, not long ago, that the king had courted his mistress before betraying her and stealing her wings, and that was what hurt her the most. In light of this conversation Diaval wondered if the human king had kissed her, if a kiss meant a sort of promise in mating, and if that was why she had used that in the princess’s curse.

Abruptly, as if sensing his thoughts, all humor left her voice and face. Her expression closed into what he had come to know as her ‘King Stefan face’. Before he could ask, she waved her hand and he was a raven once more.

“Go to sleep, Diaval,” she added. As if to soften the harshness in her tone, she gently stroked him. “Don’t concern yourself with human affairs that don’t apply to you.”

He nodded, and flew a few branches up, where he nested. While the conversation was awkward, he had enjoyed seeing her smile, making her laugh. He wondered how long it would be before he did again.

* * *

 

Over the years Diaval’s presence at the palace drew the attention of some more suspicious of King Stefan’s nobles. When that suspicion resulted in several traps and some very dangerous escapes, when Diaval nearly lost a wing, Maleficent decided they needed a second plan for how to get information about Stefan.

This second plan included Diaval going to the Palace in his human form, much to his frustration. He certainly didn’t like making the journey, and definitely did not like the level of human interaction he had to do in order to keep up the rouse. Six years since he had been given the human form he wasn’t as uncomfortable as he had once been, but he certainly didn’t feel right among human men.

And human women, for that matter, as Diaval realized soon after beginning these trips, posing as a traveler or a merchant, a fair number of shopkeeper’s wives and daughters, found his human form attractive. He certainly didn’t mind the admiration, something to flatter his vanity, but when it came to actual conversation and social cues, the raven was lost.

It became especially troublesome when an innkeeper’s daughter began to recognize him as a local traveler, and took it upon herself to speak with him on every trip he made. Diaval tried to use this to his advantage; the smitten girl also was in a position to hear all sorts of interesting and important news from the palace, but he could also see no way to dissuade her of notions of- of mating, at the same time.

After several months of this strategy, Diaval returned to his mistress, metaphorical feathers particularly ruffled. Maleficent eyed him with some amusement.

“Bad day in town?” She asked him, playfully, after receiving his report.

He scowled at her, in no mood for being teased, even if her smile was a rare thing. “Kissing is strange,” he told her.

Maleficent made a sound that might have been a snort if she were not far too dignified for such things. “Have you been kissing people, Diaval?”

He explained the day’s situation; the lovely innkeeper’s daughter had suggested they speak privately, and Diaval had obliged, entirely ignorant until her mouth was on his. He couldn’t really remember what he’d said or done, except that he got out of there very fast, very flustered and very confused.

To his immense annoyance, Maleficent laughed at him again. “My poor, poor little bird,” she teased. “You really do know nothing of human relationships, do you?”

“Raven mating is far more simple,” he said, still glaring despite the heat rising to his face.

“I have no doubt it is.” She seemed more pleased with this than she did not. Her experience with human men being what they were, perhaps she simply enjoyed the knowledge that though he make take the shape of one on occasion, he was not human. “I suppose we can’t be sending you as a man for a while now. I can’t have you kissing anyone else and getting mauled by angry fathers and brothers.” She waved her hand and Diaval was a raven once again.

He caw’d at her, pecking at her hand when she went to stroke him. She laughed again, as he flew off, annoyed. _He_ hadn’t kissed anyone, thank you very much. He _had_ been kissed, and he certainly had no intention of letting that happen again.

* * *

 

Maleficent sat in the trees, in the evening, watching as a fourteen-year-old Aurora returned to her cottage from a day out to prepare dinner. Shortly after, a black raven joined her on her branch, a fairly large branch heavy with dark red berries in his beak.

After transforming him into a man, Diaval grinned at her. “Helped her pick berries today,” he said, cheerfully.

He liked spending time with the child, Maleficent had found, raising her as his own nestling. His position as an avian father figure amused her as much as it concerned her. Aurora’s sixteenth birthday was growing nearer, and while she had been doing just fine at denying her own attachment to the cursed princess, she had realized that to lose her would hurt Diaval deeply.

Well, that was no matter of hers. He was her servant; what did she care about his feelings?

Annoyed at herself for such thoughts when Diaval was smiling at her in such genuine warmth, she plucked the branch in his lap. Popping a berry into her mouth she focused on the taste, on enjoying the day, on anything other than the princess Aurora, or her fate. Sparing her servant a glance she picked another berry.

“Diaval,” she said, when he looked at her she tossed it at him. Belatedly she remembered she only did this trick with him, with nuts or fruit, when he was a raven.

All the same, Diaval made a solid attempt to catch the red berry in his mouth. It smacked his long nose and fell to the ground. He looked down with an exaggerated mournful sigh, and Maleficent’s lips twitched. Catching that tiny encouragement, Diaval looked back at her, eyes alight. “Again,” he requested.

Maleficent raised an eyebrow but obliged. “I don’t wish to waste all of these on you,” she informed him.

But he caught it that time, grinning as he swallowed. Feeling lighter, she tossed another. Then another. Her next throw fell short. Diaval nearly fell off the branch leaning forward, barely catching it in his teeth. She laughed, watching him steady himself, before biting into the fruit and positively beaming at her, red juice clinging to his pale lips.

Her smile faltered slightly, watching him lick his lips clean absently, faced with the sudden, absurd, desire to perform that service for him. She shook herself from the idea immediately. Maleficent remembered earlier questions about kissing, his confusion and obvious distaste for the action and almost laughed again, imagining how he would react to her doing so. He was a raven, a _raven_ , for all that she might have been leaving him as a man more often in the recent years. For all that she had grown accustomed to his voice and his smile.

He was her servant, her familiar, she told herself for the second time since he had arrived that day. Certainly she was fond of him, grateful to have him at her side all these years. But that was where it ended.

Diaval had caught her absent expression, “Mistress?”

She waved her hand, not to transform him, simply brushing his concern aside. “Nothing, Diaval. It will be dark soon, we’re returning to the Moors.”

He nodded, a small obliging smile at one corner of his mouth. Looking away, she turned him back into a raven, and absently tossed the branch, with what fruit remained off the side. Diaval swooped suddenly, catching it before it hit the ground.

“Now you’re just showing off,” she told him, getting down herself.

He made a sound like cackling laughter, and took his place, flying just above her shoulder. She shook her head, but felt better for his good humor, for having a constant reminder that she could still smile.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had more ideas with this theme. So.

Kisses were _very_ strange.

It seemed as if, ever since Maleficent had pointed out the act, it was impossible for the raven to ignore it, much as he would have preferred to. It was not something he was particularly interested in, but he had slowly realized that human’s tended to do it when they were alone – or perceived that they were – as if it were a secret. And no one noticed a raven, after all.

Certainly he had seen the kind of action his mistress had described. He remembered a knight in Stefan’s army, returning battered but alive from one of the numerous futile attacks on the thorn barrier, and his very relieved mate throwing her arms around his neck. Diaval had watched longer than he had needed to just to make sure they would remember to breathe.

(For the entire week that followed, he had found himself occasionally glancing at his mistress’s mouth, for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom.)

But he also realized kisses had more… variation than what he had been told. He saw human’s place their lips on another’s cheeks or nose, or forehead. Were all of these also kisses? He knew better than to ask Maleficent; he did _not_ want to be laughed at again. Certainly all were signs of affection, though apparently not always reserved for mates as he had earlier believed.

“I believe I’ve been leaving you around humans too much,” Maleficent announced. “You’re becoming awfully gallant.”

Diaval knew she was referring to earlier that night, when Aurora had been first brought to the Moors, and he had so lightly brushed his lips to her hand, rewarded with the princess’s delighted laughter.

He had seen as noblemen approached the frail Queen and kissed the top of her hand. It seemed to be a gesture expected of them, more than anything else. A symbol of respect, apparently, of fealty. Loyalty.

(He suspected his mistress would kill him should he ever attempt the act on her, however. Not that he would _want_ to, of course.)

He hadn’t been thinking of it when Aurora came– frankly, he was too busy thinking how unlike Maleficent it was to bring the ‘little beast’ to her home, and how nice it was to see his nestling, happy, in the place that was as much his home as Maleficent’s by that time. Perhaps it was because he was _not_ thinking that he had done so.

Perhaps he _had_ been around humans too much.

Diaval knew how much Maleficent felt about human men, and glanced at her warily. There was nothing particularly telling in her face, but by then he could see the smile tucked into her impassive expression, the sparkle in her green eyes, and knew her own joy, knew her laughter without having to hear it and if anything felt even better for it.

She had returned from bringing the sleeping girl back to her cottage – after her sudden burst of excitement startled the faerie – likely with the intent to leave her there from then on. Diaval knew he had no chance of winning any argument about that, but tonight she had been happy. Tonight he could see he had made her laugh. And right then, he was happy with that.

* * *

 “Have you not worked it out yet?”

Maleficent watched her servant’s face as it fell, and almost felt guilty for her mocking laughter. Almost. After all, she wouldn’t have needed it if he had not brought up True Love’s Kiss to begin with. Diaval’s sincere care for Aurora touched her, while it didn’t surprise her; unlike her, he had never tried to deny the attachment.

Even so, he was truly grasping at straws if he meant his suggestion. Even if it were a thing that existed – and it was not – to believe that Aurora’s True Love might be that bumbling boy child she had held one conversation with… it _was_ laughable, it really was. And if Diaval was surprised or hurt by her reaction, then he was a bigger fool than she had thought.

Still, she couldn’t continue to meet his eyes any longer. She did not think she would like what she saw in them. Looking away, into the forest, she added. “I cursed her that way because there is no such thing.”

The silence that followed pressed at her heart. She had hurt him. What’s more, her reasoning sounded cheap, false in her ears, in a way it never had before. A child’s excuse befitting Maleficent’s extremely childish act of revenge.

When he did speak, his voice was quiet. “Well, that might be how _you_ feel, but what about Aurora?”

Yes, he was hurt. She could hear it in his voice, though she still did not dare look at him. She closed her eyes, trying to ignore her own ache that grew in knowing that Diaval _truly_ believed Aurora might be saved through love, that Maleficent might have the happy ending she did not deserve. That he genuinely wanted that happiness for her. For the both of them.

That perhaps he believed in true love because he thought he felt it.

She refused to turn, refused to speak, and Diaval continued, his voice hardening a fraction. “That boy could be her only chance. It’s _her_ fate anyways.”

Here, she felt anger rise in her, and she welcomed it. Frustration was better than… whatever else she felt toward him. Did he not think she _knew_ all of this? That she was going to lose the person she cared about more than anyone, the one light she had allowed into her life, and that it was her fault that this had happened? What right did he have to make her feel worse? She turned to him and raised her hand.

“Go ahead,” he snapped. His raising his voice at her startled her, but Maleficent was more shaken by the look on his face. He wasn’t just hurt – although there was that present in his dark eyes, a sort of heartsick expression she would have given the world to ignore – he looked angry with her. Diaval got frustrated with her, certainly, but never truly upset, not like this. “Turn me into whatever you want! A bird. A worm. I don’t care anymore.”

He turned, walking away from her, leaving before she dismissed him for the first time in her memory. Maleficent watched him go, her emotions churning. She wished she’d said nothing, wished that she hadn’t turned. She was angry with him. Yes, she was angry with him, _hated_ him for talking back to her, for looking at her with such a mix of longing and betrayal when speaking about True Loves Kiss – he, who knew nothing!

But if she hated him so much, why did hate to see him leave even more? 

* * *

Maleficent maintained that their first kiss was on the evening of Aurora’s coronation; soft and gentle and uncharacteristically shy. Diaval understood why she counts it as such, and chose not to press the issue. It was, after all, their first kiss when he was a man.

But she had kissed him once before.

In the aftermath of a very large battle, Maleficent had returned to what had once been a thrown room – now a disaster of glass and fire – and declared King Stefan to be dead, and that his soldiers were to put down their weapons.

They did not protest.

For his part, Diaval found it a wonder he was still conscious. He had hit his head numerous times, had lost quite a bit of blood – more blood than a raven, a horse, or a man had in its body, he guessed – and had chains, and a few spears still, digging into the dragon’s hide he currently supported. Maleficent had more important things to deal with, of course, so he let her get the surrender of Stefan’s men without drawing attention to his situation.

Still, it was a relief when she turned to him and, together with Aurora, his chains were removed.

With that done his now-winged mistress changed him back into a raven, although he internally protested the action. He wondered when it had happened – that he felt more out of place as a bird than he did as a man? Probably around the same time he had realized he had no desire to leave her side. When he had fallen in love.

Too exhausted though to caw, or even peck at her, he let her heal his injuries, her hands wonderfully gentle and cool on the burns and the fading wounds. More scars to add to the collection. He felt weary still, sore in places he didn’t expect birds got sore, but he suspected these were small pains not even his mistress’s power could heal, and he was content, grateful for what she had done.

Maleficent smiled at him when she had finished. It was a beautiful thing, that smile. So rare to see it bestowed so genuinely to anyone but Aurora, and Diaval was entranced by it.

Then she lowered her head, and so softly, so quickly, pressed her lips to the end of his beak.

Diaval decided he needed to get injured more often.

Wanting to say something, wanting to kiss her as a man, to kiss her and never stop kissing her, Diaval summoned enough strength to peck at her hand impatiently. Maleficent raised her eyebrows, both in amusement and in inquiry. “You’re not fully healed.” She told him.

He pecked at her hand again. With a sniff, she conceded, lifting a hand and waving it.

He was barely on two feet for a full second before a wave of light-headedness hit him and he collapsed; Maleficent was barely quick enough to catch him before he landed flat on his face.

And, as a few remaining soldiers watched in somewhat confused awe, this magnificent powerful creature simply laughed at her ridiculous, beloved servant, before asking the Princess Aurora to help her in carrying him.


End file.
